


You're Not Really Looking

by tealvenetianmask



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Lunch date, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-17
Updated: 2013-04-17
Packaged: 2017-12-08 18:35:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/764684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tealvenetianmask/pseuds/tealvenetianmask
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thewordlover gave me this quote as a prompt: “Every person you look at, you can see the universe in their eyes, if you’re really looking.” — George Carlin<br/>I wrote a lunch date drabble in response.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You're Not Really Looking

Jim leaned forward, his elbow on the table, and raised the corner of his upper lip just a bit, without showing any tooth, as if to say, I know something you don’t. Sherlock found himself wishing that the table were shorter, so he could feel Jim’s breathing, in and out. It was not a thought he often had about other people. He did not return the smile. 

“Do you know why I find you especially nice to look at, Sherlock?” Jim’s smirk broadened, and he barely paused at all. It was not much of a question. “Your eyes. When I watch your eyes, I swear I can see your mind turning over and over, working away.”

Sherlock had known this was a bad idea. Meet me for lunch, Jim had said, as if two people like them could just meet for lunch, nothing more, sit down together at one table among many just like it, eat food in one another’s company, chatting casually between bites, like anyone else would, and then go their separate ways. Just before they’d sat down, he’d seen a young woman at a table across the cafe stand up, kiss her date chastely on the lips, lift her briefcase, and dart out into the cold, nearly unseen, just like everyone else. How, he thought. 

He realized he must look uncomfortable, uncertain, sitting there, not responding, glancing down into his water glass, glancing back to Jim, refusing to let their eyes meet, because eyes, what was this preoccupation everyone had with eyes when they were attracted to another person? Absolutely ridiculous.

“You can’t see me thinking in my eyes,” Sherlock said incredulously, as though the brilliant, fascinating person sitting across from him were actually a bit dim, “eyes are layers of tissue shaped to take in light, connected to only nerves and synapses. You know very well that if you could look into a brain you wouldn’t see much of anything anyway. Nothing even moves when thoughts travel.”

“Always so literal.”

Sherlock didn’t look up. He could hear Jim’s eyes rolling in his voice, in the way he extracted his words slowly. Because eyes were that too, a part of the facade expressing whatever a person wanted to express. A tool, just like the rest of the face when used properly. Jim manipulated his expressions for effect better than anyone else Sherlock had ever observed.

“Sherlock, look at me.” 

His voice was gentle, but matter-of-fact. Sherlock tilted his chin up, and let his eyes travel across Jim’s face and take him in, because he would seem afraid if he didn’t. And this was only lunch. 

“What do you see?”

Sherlock cleared his throat, but the way the light from the tall narrow windows caught Jim’s eyes made him pause. Honey-toned, whenever light feel on them, miniscule pupils, so much light, encapsulated by skin that creased at the corners, from years of frowning and smiling theatrically. From years of living and experiencing, watching his carefully crafted work unfold, and being disappointed nonetheless. Sherlock waited too long to speak. 

Jim’s grin widened, as if he already had the only answer he needed. Sherlock frowned back defiantly, and opened his mouth to deduce aloud exactly what Jim was doing with his muscles and his synapses, what he was doing that made Sherlock feel so paralyzed in his seat.


End file.
